This historical paper presents a case study of auricular (atrial) flutter, contributing to the early clinical recognition of the condition.
Offers historical perspective on atrial flutter; leaves open questions on alignment with modern diagnostic criteria.
In 1887 McWilliam¹produced a flutter in the auricles of the mammalian heart by means of faradic stimulation of the auricles. In 1908 Hertz and Goodhart²reported a human case in which the auricles were beating rapidly at a rate of about 230 per minute, but the ventricles were beating about 80. In 1911, Jolly and Ritchie³applied the term of auricular flutter to those cases of rapid regular auricular contractions ranging from 250 to 350 per minute associated with partial or complete heart block, so that the ventricular rate was much slower. Reports of similar cases have appeared in the medical literature since that time. Summaries of these cases with the addition of new ones have been made by Lewis⁴in 1912, and more recently by Ritchie⁵in 1914. At present this cardiac condition is well recognized as a clinical entity, and
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Samuel A. Levine (1915) studied this question.
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